Curiosity Re: [lbo-talk] NYT editorial on terror bill

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 9/28/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Sep 28, 2006, at 3:19 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > On 9/28/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> >> I would think that newspapers make a difference, if they do make a
> >> difference, only collectively, over a considerable amount of time, on
> >> general response to the world, but make no difference whatever on
> >> specific issues on a specific occasion. It would be interesting to
> >> try
> >> to formulate The Message which u.s. papers, collectively, over
> >> periods
> >> of years or decades, issue. That formulation would be the answer
> >> to the
> >> question, "What difference do newspapers make?"
> >
> > 1.  "The United States is the greatest nation in the world, and
> > Americans are freer and richer than any other people in the world, so
> > the rest of the world envy us."
> >
> > 2.  "The United States is obligated to make the rest of the world
> > better -- bring freedom and democracy to them if possible, or
> > establish stability at least.  Those who think neither is possible are
> > selfish isolationists or racists who believe that the rest of the
> > world do not want or deserve freedom and democracy."
>
> Etc. Was this an actual attempt to answer Carrol's question? If it
> is, it makes me wonder if you read the NYT or any other half-decent
> newspaper. Yeah, there's a lot of crap in the NYT, but there's a lot
> of useful information too - a lot more than you typically find in the
> "left" or "alternative" press.

I subscribe to the NYT, but most Americans don't read it.  And even
the NYT takes Washington's right and duty to world leadership for
granted, except that the NYT wants it to be kinder, gentler hegemony.
When I first came to the states, I was very much struck by a big
difference in attitude as to "Who Should Govern the World" between the
NYT and Asahi, the latter of which doesn't make the sort of incessant
appeals to "Our Government's Very Important Roles in World Politics"
that the NYT does explicitly and implicitly, though otherwise two
papers have similar politics (i.e., liberal bourgeois).
-- 
Yoshie
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